Open High Risk Hazard Review

Phil La Duke — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 09:58:21 GMT

I'm continually looking for ways to shorten the HIT meetings while making the process itself more effective. One of thing that will accomplish both is doing some up front work on the Open High Risk Hazard report. I recently opened one such report only to find that of the 14 hazards listed only 2 were what I would truly consider to be high risk. This begs the question, "why are so many of these hazards being incorrectly reported?' The reasons are varied and all point to the need to coach the inspectors on how to do a better job rating the priority of a hazard, but also identifies coaching opportunities for both the IRPs and the HIT membership.

Coaching the Inspectors
the Inspectors need to understand high risk
* should refer to hazards where injury is almost certain and the MOST likely injury will be serious or life threatening
* should be the proximate (not necessarily root) cause of the catastrophic injury.
* the hazard is likely to cause an acute injury
or
* no long-term containment is practical or available

I've seen poor ergonomic conditions that would likely cause a carpal tunnel injury. While the first two of the above might apply the injury is not likely to be acute (it will build over time). In other cases I've seen PPE hazards as rated high. The lack of PPE is never a proximate cause of injuries (and I can't think of a circumstance where it would ever be root cause.) The best a lack of PPE will do is exacerbate another hazard.

to be continued

Phil La Duke
www.safety-impact.com

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Open High Risk Hazard Review